Olympic 'Mastermind' Wants Stadium Rethink

The architect of the original Olympic plan has said action is needed to prevent the athletics stadium becoming a white elephant, in an exclusive interview with Sky News.

After a Sky Sports News investigation, Steve Lawrence admitted he made the anonymous complaint to the EU Commission, which the Government blamed for the collapse of the stadium legacy deal with West Ham FC.

Mr Lawrence was commissioned by Stratford Development Partnership more than a decade ago to carry out a feasibility study for the Olympics on Stratford Rail Lands once it became clear Wembley was not a viable site for the Games.

In an exclusive interview, he revealed he complained to the European Commission in August last year because he felt the bidding process for the future use of the stadium was "opaque" and could lead to a heavy burden on the taxpayer.

He believes a joint athletics-football legacy would never generate the cash needed to sustain the stadium.

"There's nothing in this for me whatsoever. I don't have any connections with any of the parties involved," he said.

"I care a great deal about the project. It's a project I started in the first place and I want the legacy in east London to last for generations.

"I felt that this could bring about great change and I saw this process turning into a debacle and it was not generating a sensible legacy.

"I still believe that it is unrealistic to predicate the legacy use on athletics. It can only work with a football use in the stadium.

"I do think it expanded rather more than it needed to, I think too much land has been used up, and I believe the stadium would have better positioned to the north of (the) Channel Tunnel railway station.

"It would have been easier to combine with the warm-up track which would have made producing a sensible legacy project much easier.

"In its present form with athletics only, it's definitely not viable. If you look at the 1928 stadium in Amsterdam, if you look at the Barcelona Olympic Stadium, if you look at Munich... All of these stadia require support from the state and have done in the long term.

"The stadium in Amsterdam is now nearly 80, maybe 90 years old and it still needs state support and, as things stand the stand, we will be supporting the Olympic stadium for the next 100 years."

West Ham, along with Newham Council, were granted the right to use the stadium after the 2012 Games in February last year, only for the deal to subsequently collapse.

Rival bidders Tottenham Hotspur and Leyton Orient launched a judicial review against the decision, claiming a £40m loan Newham Council had agreed to lend into a limited liability partnership between them and West Ham, amounted to unfair state aid to a commercial firm.

Alongside the judicial review in the High Court, Mr Lawrence's complaint was made to the European Commission.

The Government cited the complaint as their reason for collapsing the deal, claiming European litigation could paralyse the legacy for years.

However, Mr Lawrence disputes the Government's reasoning.

He said: "I identified the problem very early on at the beginning of 2011. If it had been dealt with properly and had they listened I wouldn't have needed to make the complaint because they would have been dealing with the issue.

"Was my complaint the reason for pulling the plug on it? I'm not sure if that's true. I don't know all the details of the judicial review but I think it was due be decided the following week.

"My feeling is that they used the complaint as an excuse for pulling out in advance of the judicial review (with Spurs and Leyton Orient) as they knew they were going to lose."

In December last year, the Olympic Park Legacy CompanY (OPLC) opened a new process for bidders which included short 'concessions' rather than a longer lease as was originally planned.

Spurs, in the meantime, withdrew their interest and decided to build a new stadium next to their present one in White Hart Lane.

The new terms are not as appealing for West Ham and Leyton Orient as they no longer include the lucrative naming rights. These will now remain with the Government.

The successful bidder is expected to be announced in May.

But Mr Lawrence is calling for the bid process to be stopped immediately and for the Government to conduct a review into the entire legacy process as he believes a shared athletics and football legacy will not raise sufficient revenues.

Without this, he fears the stadium will become a white elephant.

"I believe if we construct a centre for athletics on the land where the warm-up track will be and then allow the stadium to be converted for football-only use, possibly with joint tenancy for West Ham and Leyton Orient, now Spurs have withdrawn from the process, I think we have a project where everyone can win.

"My recommendation is to take a step back, take a good look at it and then I think we can wind up with a genuine legacy."

An OPLC spokesman said: "As promised to the International Olympic Committee when London won the bid to stage the Olympics and Paralympics, the stadium will become a new national centre for athletics, and host to the 2017 World Athletics Championships.

"We are currently well underway with a new process to identify additional tenants and occupants to provide a mix of sport, events and community use in the stadium. We have had 16 expressions of interest and we aim to appoint before the Games."